Making history in Massachusetts

September 29, 20065:21 AM CST

Deval Patrick won the Massachusetts Democratic primaries Sept. 19 against venture capitalist Chris Gabrieli and State Attorney General Tom Reilly. Patrick, the former assistant attorney general for civil rights in the Clinton administration, may well be on the way to become the first African American governor of this New England state. Patrick overtook the lead from Reilly by meeting and appealing to rank-and-file Democratic Party activists. This produced an upsurge of new activists who, for the first time, ran as delegates to the state party convention, upsetting the regular party establishment.